Question: Have you heard of an ingredient called Aspartame. If so what sort of harmful things can it do to you.

Vee Mitchell answered on 29 Jun 2012:

I have heard of Aspartame – it usually marketed in this country as Nutrasweet. It’s a chemical derivative of an amino acid (the building blocks of protein) that a chemist accidentally found out it was sweet right back in the 60’s. There have been huge amounts of research done on this before it was allowed to be added to food as an artificial sweetner (in the 1980s) but several people also claim its harmful. Some people claim it causes food allergies and others cancer. As far as the food allergy thing goes, well there a lot of people allergic to natural food products (wheat, milk, nuts) so I don’t think that makes it dangerous. The cancer claims – well if it was allowed on to the market then it would have been tested for that, so maybe this is just a hoax. If it worries you then there are lots of other sweetners that don’t contain it – they are based on natural fruit sugars for example which don’t have such high calories. Even better avoid the processed foods that these products are heaped into and have a nice apple or a glass of water instead.